Author: Dave RamseyPublisher: Thomas Nelson IncISBN: 159555078XFormat: PDF, DocsDownload Now
A strategy for changing attitudes about personal finances covers such topics as getting out of debt, the dangers of cash advances and keeping spending within income limits.

Author: Liz WestonPublisher: FT PressISBN: 013324928XFormat: PDF, KindleDownload Now
Struggling with debt? Get realistic help that's actually useful, from Liz Weston, one of the most popular and respected personal finance experts! Today, people struggling with debt have far fewer options: lenders are stingier, which makes it harder to avert disaster, or to recover from setbacks like foreclosure, short sales, or bankruptcy. (Meanwhile, people with good credit have more options than ever, including some of the lowest interest rates in decades.) You need an up-to-date guide that can help you assess options, find help, discover opportunities, and take action that works. Liz Weston's Deal with Your Debt, Updated and Revised Edition is that guide. Weston reveals why most "conventional wisdom" about debt is just dead wrong. For most people, it's simply impractical to pay off every dime of debt, and live forever debt free. In fact, doing that can leave you a lot poorer in the long run. You're more likely to give up, or pay off the wrong debts. You could leave yourself too little flexibility to survive a financial crisis. You could neglect saving for retirement. You might even wind up in bankruptcy -- just what you're trying to avoid! For most people, it's smarter to control and manage debt effectively. In this extensively updated guide, Weston shows how to do that. You'll learn which debts can actually help build wealth over time, and which are simply toxic. You'll find up-to-date, real-world strategies for assessing and paying off debt, money-saving insights on which debts to tackle first, and crucial information about everything from debt consolidation loans to credit scores and credit counseling. Weston offers practical guidelines for assessing how much debt is safe -- and compassionate, realistic guidance if you've gone beyond the safety zone. If you've ever worried about debt, you'll find the new edition of Deal with Your Debt absolutely indispensable.

Author: Gerri DetweilerPublisher:ISBN: 9780965963855Format: PDF, ePub, DocsDownload Now
-- Why a 13% credit card can cost more to pay off than a 19% one-- Where to get consolidation loans with no credit check-- How to create a rapid repayment plan based on your personality-- The eight essential keys to successful debt consolidation-- How to avoid consolidation traps that can lead to bankruptcy or foreclosure

Author: DidoSpherePublisher:ISBN: 9781976842764Format: PDF, ePubDownload Now
This book IS about negotiating forgiveness for your credit card debt by writing your creditor one simple negotiation letter and what to do if the creditor refuses to negotiate. If you owe money on your credit cards and cannot make payments anymore because of financial difficulty, this book is for you. I owed over $100,000 in credit card debt and the debt was hurting my life. I had trouble sleeping at night thinking how long my ever-increasing debt would continue to gnaw at me. Even if I could afford to make the minimum payments and do not borrow anymore, with interest of 25% APR, I will still owe a lot of money after many years of making only minimum payments. The interest alone would total close to $100,000. It took a year of trial and error, hours on the phone and writing meaningless letters most of which I copied from the internet before I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. None of the free advice and letters in the internet worked because the truth is I was not insolvent. I did not qualify for bankruptcy protection. I could have paid my credit card debt by liquidating my assets, selling my house, but that would have been devastating for my family. I kept on thinking of a way for my creditors to reduce my debt. I finally came up with The Letter that uniformly worked in negotiating down my debt. After mailing The Letter to my creditors, I received a reply from one of them offering to accept 50% of what I owed as full payment of my debt. I countered with 5%. We finally agreed on 10% of the original amount as full and final settlement of my balance. Considering I had not paid them for a year, I accumulated a little cash, so I was happy to grab the offer and pay the 10%. I had five credit cards with large balances and The Letter worked satisfactorily on four of the accounts. I settled the 4 accounts for between 5% and 15%. The last hold-out, surprisingly the account with the smallest balance at $13,000 chose to take me to arbitration. This negotiation-resistant creditor perceived that they might collect more money from me that way but they were wrong. I was surprised that not one of the 4 creditors even referred to the contents of The Letter or attempted to verify what I had written in the letter. The Letter aims to convey this message: "Take my final settlement offer or sue me. But if you sue me, you will lose". Ken Clark, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Out of Debt: "So many people are trying to get their balances reduced, you call and try to negotiate a balance, and it's 'Get in line.'" The card company's attitude may be, "Yeah, you and everybody else"". DidoSphere's Comment - That's because you called to negotiate instead of sending them The Letter shown at the end of this chapter. Trust me there aren't that many accounts in default as a percentage of the whole or our banking system would collapse. If you write The Letter shown at the end of this chapter, the creditor will put you at the front of the line.Brian Tawney, Director of Clear One Advantage: "Based on experience negotiating with creditors, debt settlement companies know what percentage of debt owed each creditor is likely to agree to. We use an algorithm that considers 140 different variables and tells us the accounts that have the highest opportunity to settle at any given time. We negotiate in bulk. We can negotiate thousands of cases and get a better settlement for everyone". Translation: Debt Settlement Agencies take only the easy cases that's why they "negotiate in bulk". If they have to spend more time on your case because you have wages a creditor can garnish and assets they can put a lien on, they will not take your case. I like the DidoSphere system better. You write The Letter shown at the end of this chapter which begs creditors to forgive 85% to 95% of your debt. The creditors can take it or leave it. If they take it, you win. If they leave it, they lose. Author's website: www.didosphere.com

Author: Martha MaedaPublisher: Atlantic Publishing CompanyISBN: 1601383282Format: PDF, ePub, DocsDownload Now
Do you struggle each month to make minimum credit card payments? Are you 30, 60, or even 90 days late on several accounts? If so, you aren’t alone. According to a January 2010 report from the U.S. Federal Reserve, there are 609.8 million credit cards held by U.S. consumers, and the average credit card debt per household is $15,519. In the last 12 months, 15 percent of American adults, or nearly 34 million people, have been late making a credit card payment, and 8 percent (18 million people) have missed a payment entirely, according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. If these statistics hit home for you, don’t turn to bankruptcy to solve your financial woes. This book will provide you with the tools to legally settle your credit card accounts — without ruining your financial situation for years to come. How to Legally Settle Your Personal Credit Card Debt for Pennies on the Dollar is for everyone who is unable to pay mounting minimum payments on their credit cards. You will learn everything you need to know about the basics of credit card debt, including interest rates, finance charges, minimum payments, and late fees. Discover what actually happens to your credit when you are late making your payments or stop making payments altogether and how long it takes before your credit cards debt is sold to a collection agency. This book will provide tips and strategies for negotiating with your original creditor and collection agencies and sample settlement letters you can use when working with creditors. Equip yourself with proven strategies for legally challenging the validity of your credit card debt and information on how to determine whether your rights are being violated under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. You will find out the advantages of not filing bankruptcy and how to work with credit counselors and avoid debt-reduction scams. Once you have successfully settled your debt and avoided bankruptcy, you will learn how to avoid repeating these mistakes in the future by setting budgets, cutting costs, and lowering interest rates. Learn how the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, which went into effect in February 2010, affects you as a consumer. While these new rules do not absolve consumers of their obligations, they do mean that credit card companies can no longer retroactively increase rates, charge misleading late fees, or use over-limit fee traps. We have spent hundreds of hours interviewing top financial experts, bill collectors, and individuals just like you who were able to legally settle their credit card debt without resorting to bankruptcy. If you are tired of dodging phone calls from collectors or worrying about how missed payments have ruined your credit score, get yourself back to a more stable financial situation — one where credit card debt is a thing of the past.

Author: David TrahairPublisher: John Wiley & SonsISBN: 1118096061Format: PDFDownload Now
As the majority of Canadians are now spending much more than they make, their debt levels are reaching crisis proportions. Excluding mortgage debt, the average Canadian owes over $25,000 in consumer debt, which poses massive risks not only for the individuals carrying that financial load, but for our entire financial system. In Crushing Debt, bestselling author David Trahair (Enough Bull) warns Canadians that consumer debt is becoming an urgent problem but one that can be solved. Trahair clearly outlines the evils of debt and how easy it is for debt to spiral out of control with examples of real-life stories of debt disasters. If you are a Canadian who is already struggling with debt, Crushing Debt will motivate you to face your financial problems and will show you step-by-step the most appropriate solution to getting out of your personal debt hell. Filled with proven advice, Crushing Debt is a call to action on an urgent and debilitating problem for far too many Canadians.

Author: Ramit SethiPublisher: Hachette UKISBN: 1848944888Format: PDF, MobiDownload Now
I Will Teach You To Be Rich is a practical approach delivered with a non-judgemental style based on the four pillars of personal finance – banking, saving, budgeting and investing – and the wealth-building ideas of personal entrepreneurship. Witty, entertaining, wise and practical, Ramit Sethi explains how to automate your money flow - i.e. earn while sleeping, why your new best friend should be the taxman and how to beat banks and credit cards at the fee game. How do you negotiate a raise? How can you manage student loans? And can you still enjoy your daily latte and buy that iPhone? Sethi's 6-week plan shows you how: Week 1: Optimise your credit cards and learn exactly what to say to get fees waived Week 2: Set up no-fee, high-interest bank accounts that won't cost you Week 3: Open investment accounts even with a small amount of money Week 4: Figure out how much you’re spending. And then learn how to make your money go where you want it to go! Week 5: Automate your new infrastructure to make your accounts play nicely together Week 6: Why investing isn't the same as picking stocks - how to get the most out of the market with very little work.

Author: Jerrold MundisPublisher: BantamISBN: 0345534794Format: PDF, ePub, MobiDownload Now
A simple, proven-effective formula for freeing yourself from debt—and staying that way • Revised and updated, with a new Preface by the author “A must read for anyone wanting to get their head above water.”—The Wall Street Journal THE CLASSIC GUIDE, REVISED WITH UP-TO-THE-MINUTE INFORMATION OUT OF THE RED • Do this month’s bills pile up before you’ve paid last month’s? • Do you regularly receive past-due notices? • Do you get letters threatening legal action if immediate payment is not made? • Do the total amounts of your revolving charge accounts keep rising? INTO THE BLACK Whether you are currently in debt or fear you’re falling into debt, you are not alone. Sixty million Americans—from doctors to secretaries, from executives to the unemployed—face the same problem and live under the same daily stress. Based on the proven techniques of the national Debtors Anonymous program, here is the first complete, step-by-step guide to getting out of debt once and for all. You’ll learn • how to recognize the warning signs of serious debt • how to negotiate with angry creditors, collection agencies, and the IRS • how to design a realistic and painless payback schedule • how to identify your spending blind spots • how to cope with the anxiety and daily pressures of owing money • plus the three cardinal rules for staying out of debt forever, and much more! This book is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Debtors Anonymous. A recovered debtor, the author is intimately familiar with the success of the Debtors Anonymous program. From the Trade Paperback edition.